


and all of us can be friends

by mockturtletale



Series: tumblr made me do it [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, an ode to Taylor Hall's shoulders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 13:59:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1187877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mockturtletale/pseuds/mockturtletale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan wants to gouge his own eyes out with a fork. He wants to offer to towel Jordan off with his tongue when he gets out of the pool. He wants to climb Taylor like a fucking jungle gym.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and all of us can be friends

**Author's Note:**

> This was spawned by a tumblr meme, which incited me to talk about first kisses and the suchlike.

The sun is out in Edmonton and the Oilers have the entire weekend off from play, one whole Sunday off from practices of any kind.

Ryan knows without counting heads that every single one of his teammates is here, and he knows from having been here before them that they all arrived to Smytty's exactly on time. Smytty has a pool _and_ a hot tub and the biggest, most well-stocked kitchen Ryan has ever seen so he understands their eagerness. He tops it himself, and maybe that's because he's still technically a rookie for another month or so, but if Ryan is being completely honest with himself – even though that's something that has become infinitely more difficult to do, this season – he can admit it might have a little more to do with the way Jordan's arms look, wet and straining and glistening, as he's pulling himself out of a pool, and the unholy glory that is Taylor Hall's shoulders in a tank top, the way the obnoxious shirt (that says 'sun's out, guns out', because it's Taylor) is cut so low at the sides that Ryan can see his goddamn lats. 

Ryan wants to gouge his own eyes out with a fork. He wants to offer to towel Jordan off with his tongue when he gets out of the pool. He wants to climb Taylor like a fucking jungle gym. 

Sitting up on a counter next to the grill, watching Jonesy work and passing him whatever he needs to do so, Ryan is suddenly looking forward to summer with an enthusiasm he hadn't thought he'd be able to manage for his first real break from being an NHL player. Summer will be when he gets over this, he promises himself. A break from it is all he needs, he's totally confident. Because as is, the combination of their schedule, Taylor's body, and Jordan's hands and smile are affording Ryan nothing even close to mercy. Their proximity and the sheer constancy of their presence is just a little overwhelming, is all. Ryan can head back to Burnaby and he can hang out with his family and work up a little more weight, he can visit with friends and maybe fit in some time to improve his golf game, but most importantly he can get the hell away from the constant torment of having to play alongside the two most singularly attractive people he has ever had the unfortunate pleasure of playing beautifully with.

Summer is going to be the best, Ryan thinks wistfully, maybe even sighing a little at the thought of all the glorious relief that awaits him, because Jonesy is looking at him like he just asked him where babies come from. Whoops.

“I'm just going to go .... do something else,” Ryan says, hopping down from the counter and power walking to the kitchen as surreptitiously as he can manage. He just needs a break is all. So what if he needs to go walk it off like ten times a day these days? Mostly people seem to assume he's having a hard time dealing with the increased media attention or whatever, and that suits Ryan just fine.

He is seriously accustomed to these hideout adventures, and he has grown pretty comfortable in the knowledge that his teammates aren't likely to disturb him when he wanders off to commune with whatever force or gods will help him out with ignoring his baser urges, so he almost drops his phone – and there goes his new high score in tetris – when another pair of feet appear in front of his. He really hadn't been counting on anyone finding him hiding out sitting on the floor in the upstairs guest bathroom.

“Hey! What's up!” Taylor says, grinning at him like he just bumped into him in the player's lounge at Rexall, or has just fallen into step with him in the parking lot or whatever. He's standing there with his hands in his pockets, still wearing that traitorously revealing shirt, and it takes Ryan a minute to remember that he's supposed to respond when someone asks him a question. Sort of.

“Um. Hi,” he manages, because he's incredibly eloquent. Super great at conversation. Innately gifted at the art of being totally comfortable around other human beings he wants to put his mouth all over. Really. Just watch him wow.

Thankfully, Taylor either doesn't notice or doesn't mind, because his smile just gets bigger and he helps himself to the space next to Ryan on the bathroom floor like it was offered. He closes the bathroom door behind him, Ryan can't help but notice and hate himself for noticing.

“So. Whatcha doin'?” Taylor Hall isn't big on personal space, and Ryan maybe has to take a deep and fortifying breath before he answers. He shuffles a little to the side under the guise of giving Taylor more room, being a considerate teammate and all that, but Taylor just wiggles even closer, and all is for nought.

“Just uh. Playing tetris?”

“And you couldn't do that out by the pool?” Taylor asks it idly, plain with curiosity, so Ryan doesn't feel the need to bristle or defend himself.

“I'm not used to that much sunshine, I guess. Needed the great indoors.” It's not even a total lie. Ryan really is enthusiastic about air conditioned, temperature controlled rooms.

“Right,” Taylor says, and that's definitely disbelieving. Ryan feels it coming before it does and he'd brace himself if he could, but the only thing to hand to lean on is Taylor's thigh, and while he'd really like to .... no. “So why are you really hiding out up here?”

The great and truly wretched thing about it is that Taylor asks like he can, and like he's honestly expecting an answer. He asks it like it'll be easy for Ryan to tell him the truth, and it should be, because if it were anything else it would be. The best and worst thing about playing with these two is that during their downtime from being ungodly levels of hot, they're great fucking guys, and the three of them have become something like really fucking good friends. They talk about everything. Well. Almost everything.

“Ummm. I'm ... like ... processing things? End of the season and all that. It's a lot, you know?”

“Sure,” Taylor can say easily, because Ryan knows there's hardly anything he could say that Taylor wouldn't at least try to understand. “We weren't up to that playoff run yet, but it was a good season for our team, right? For us?”

“Yeah. For sure,” Ryan says, and with feeling. This is easy, familiar territory. He had a blast playing with Jordan and Taylor, even if it didn't really get them anywhere. Not this time, at least.

“And you feel at home here, yeah? Like you know that everyone is really glad we got you? We did an okay job at making you feel welcome?” Taylor asks, all painfully earnest in the face and _great_ in the mouth. He brought his practically-naked shoulders into Ryan's haven with him, and his skin is touching Ryan's where their arms are pressed together. Ryan wonders when the next flight out to Vancouver is and if someone would give him a ride to the airport.

“Yeaaaaaah,” Ryan says, “It's been great. Really great. Everyone is ... really great.” Honestly, he's wasted on hockey. He should have followed his heart and gone into public speaking where he clearly belongs.

“And how about me and Jordan? You like us, right? We're friends, the three of us?”

Ryan is kind of starting to get stressed for brand new reasons now. He's more than adept at fending off his constant and crippling attraction to his linemates, but it seems kind of like Taylor is working up to something here. Ryan has always wondered about Taylor and Jordan. He has wondered out loud a couple times, even, and been told by each of them that they're not like that, but maybe that's changed because it sounds like Taylor is about to ask Ryan to be best man at their wedding.

“We're friends for sure. You've both great. Like – especially great. Why? Is there – do you need to talk about anything? Is that why you followed me up here?”

Taylor shrugs, sheepish, and Ryan really wishes he wouldn't move his shoulders when he's looking at Ryan through his eyelashes. The movement makes one of the miniscule straps of fabric that's barely holding his shirt on shift, and then his collarbones are right there, and Ryan's mouth _waters_.

“I just wanted to check that we are friends, I guess. And then I, uh ...” Ryan prepares himself for the very worst, except it'll kind of be the best if Jordan and Taylor have gotten together. That way they'll both be off the market, and Ryan won't ever have to worry about accidentally calling one of them and begging them to come over when he's drunk and no more desperate for them than he always is, just past the level of inhibition that means he can successfully fight that urge when he has it. Which is all the time. Just to be clear. 

Taylor drops his hand from his lap onto the tiled floor between his thigh and Ryan's, and this lines up their forearms. Puts their pinkies about one millimeter apart. Taylor's hand trembles a little, and Ryan has to give himself the 'you can absolutely breathe, you fucking non, you were born blessed with that ability, suck it the hell up,' pep talk that he previously hadn't needed in like a whole month.

“I wanted to – um. So. We're friends. And that's great. You're a great friend and I like you a lot. Like ... so much. You're a pretty great guy to play hockey with, and I'm glad that we're friends, super glad. But I was wondering if maybe we could be the kind of friends that make out, because hear me out here, we -”

And on any other day (which is to say no day ever) Ryan would absolutely pause to let Taylor finish that sentence, because it seems like it's going to be a doozie and he really wants to hear that conclusion, he does, but what he'd rather do and so what he does instead is throw his phone onto the bath mat in the middle of the room and push himself up off the floor so he can slide into Taylor's lap, straddling him on the bathroom floor of their teammates house because Taylor could ask Ryan to make out with him any time, any place, and Ryan would be there for him in his moment of need. He is a very giving guy.

And as luck would have it, it seems like Taylor is great at taking. His most immediate reaction to a having a sudden lapful of Ryan is to sit up only so much that when he shifts back against the cabinet at his back he can drop Ryan from the hold he has on his hips into what then becomes the perfect cradle he's made of his thighs for Ryan's ass. His hands are instantly greedy, warm in the pockets of Ryan's shorts, hot and rough up under the back of Ryan's shirt.

“Thank fucking god,” he says when his cataloguing Ryan's body seems to have slowed into something of a pattern, and maybe Ryan has only just got his breath back, but he's okay with it taking a hike again when it's because Taylor's cupping Ryan's jaw in one big, lovely hand and bringing their faces together, opening his mouth over Ryan's bottom lip like he's been waiting to do that; like he's needed to.

“Don't 'thank fucking god' me,” Ryan finds the time to protest, because that's Taylor's tongue that's licking up under his top lip and he has finally, finally got his hands on Taylor's shoulders, which - “I thought I was going to go crazy. Thought I was going to faceplant into your shoulders in the showers and refuse to fucking leave.”

“You are very welcome to faceplant on any part of my body that catches your eye. Any time, Ryan,” Taylor says, leering even when he's got his hands down the back of Ryan's pants and Ryan's Adam's apple already jumping under his teeth.

“Kind of you,” Ryan notes, and then he's done with talking, done with it forever, because he has to work his tongue into Taylor's mouth and then let him do the same, welcome it with hitched little moans that make Taylor's hands clench on his ass, make Taylor pull his knees up so he can grind up against Ryan, both of them hard and way more undone by this than they probably should be.

It's a tough thing, pulling away from Taylor, particularly when he seems so set on sucking on Ryan's lower lip until what started out as long, slick kisses start to become more like heartfelt, intent-laden bites, but Ryan manages it, because he has a very important question to ask.

“Just to clarify, we're the kind of friends who make out, but are we the kind of friends who get off on their teammates bathroom floors, because if we're not then we should probably slow this down.”

Taylor closes his eyes like he's in pain, and his fingers dig into Ryan's ass hard enough to leave what will hopefully be lasting little fingerprint bruises. He tips his forehead up against Ryan's, and just breathes against his mouth, slow and hard, while his hands drag a glacial retreat up into the small of Ryan's back, right around the line of his hip bones and up onto his waist. It's probably supposed to be safer territory, but the feel of Taylor's palms so broad and hot on his bare skin and underneath his clothes where they've never been before and probably shouldn't go makes Ryan shiver, makes him shake in Taylor's lap. Taylor lifts his chin and catches Ryan's mouth again, kisses him slower but harder for the change in speed, deeper with the way he can press his tongue into Ryan's mouth like he wants to find other ways to get inside Ryan.

“If we were anywhere else, you'd be the kind of friend I'd want to blow,” Taylor says, and Ryan gasps like he's just taken a slapshot to the chest. “I want to take you home and make you the kind of friend I can spend all day fucking.”

“You're a terrible friend,” Ryan admonishes, but he does it when he has knocked Taylor's baseball cap off to get his hands in Taylor's hair and with his teeth teasing along the line of the tendon in Taylor's throat, so he figures Taylor won't take it to heart. Maybe they can't cross those lines yet, not here, maybe not this quickly, but Ryan figures he has more than earned the right to push at the straps of Taylor's awful tank top until the fabric maybe rips a little, whatever, Ryan doesn't care because then he has the entire span of Taylor's shoulders bared for his mouth, uninterrupted by fabric or anything else.

“You were not kidding about the shoulder thing,” Taylor says, arching his back to make it easier when Ryan bends his head to lick up under his collarbone. His hands rise higher on Ryan's waist when Ryan bites into the thick cord of muscle between Taylor's shoulder and his neck, and they're maybe about to fall into the territory of 'friends who are the worst teammates ever' when Taylor's phone chimes and the noise of it cuts through air that was previously thick with nothing but the sounds they couldn't help making.

Ryan sits up, sits back, and Taylor glares at him for that but retaliates by lifting his hips to pull his phone out of his back pocket. Terrible friend, seriously.

“Jordan. Wondering where I am and if I've seen you,” Taylor says, showing Ryan the message and biting at his own lip, licking at the corner of his mouth like Ryan has made a mess he needs to clean up.

Wordlessly, they take the interruption as the out that it is, albeit the out that neither of them seemed to want, and they spend a couple minutes trying mostly in vain to fix the way their hair and clothes are wrecked. Taylor's tank really is ripped in the back, and Ryan would be sorry about that if it weren't for the fact that he absolutely is not sorry, instead.

There's a pause before they open the bathroom door.

Ryan turns to Taylor and takes a chance.

“Jordan is a good guy. A really good friend,” he says, and leaves it there for Taylor to pick up and shelve however he wants, wherever it fits.

“Yeah,” Taylor says, hooking one finger into Ryan's belt loops and hanging on. “He is.” It sounds more like a question than an answer, but Ryan is pretty sure they can figure it out, together.

**Author's Note:**

> Not true, not all details exactly correct etc. etc. etc.


End file.
